how do i be a better writer
how do i be a better writer
how do i be a better writer
how do i be a better writer
maybe if i write it out enough times, it'll happen as wishfully as the click-click of dorothy's heels.
the answer is quite simple, really, one that english teachers have told me year after year in school, compulsory and tertiary. it's to read more. i used to abhor the thought back then. much of my life is hours and hours of reading, mostly in the context of education. it felt like work, really.
i know some of my peers found it to be a means of escapism or a playground for their imaginations. it was a pleasurable activity. it meant work work work homework essays annotated bibliographies reports training .docx to .pdf conversions ... no, please, reading on purpose? no way.
i'm a creature of habit, but that doesn't necessarily mean i'll enjoy the some of habits i've accumulated. much of these habits have basis in muscle memory i have come to associate with a job, or a class, or anything that is all work and no play. the thought of pulling a shot of espresso for fun once had my hand curl into a grip on a phantom portafilter that soon followed with a disembodied screech from a milk wand and a spectral waft of ground coffee dust in my nostrils, and i felt a line of people i imagined right before me watching my every move with their own separate flavors of curt impatience in their postures. then, i snap out of it, in a relief that cools my skin with a misty refrain because hello, i haven't been a barista in nearly a decade?
but it's not so bad to have that stored away, though. knowledge is cool. i didn't get to that point overnight. that seems to be the theme of the month, that you have to start somewhere and keep going because the time will pass anyways. and enough time has passed to where i don't feel so uneasy around an espresso machine.
i have a couple of books by my nightstand that i read a little bit as a bedtime routine. i finished volume one of the deluxe edition edition of berserk. yeah, pictures with words, but i find myself noting every possible detail brought to life by kentaro miura's pen. in a way, i am spending about as much time per page as i would with a novel. i got a book by sontag, too, and a book my friend lent me about rilke, i think. this queue of mine is decorative, but i'll get through each one by one soon enough.
i'm keen to read sontag because she was one of the catalysts to get me back into writing. people i followed on tumblr would post excerpts of her essays and i was instantly drawn to her manner of syntax. i felt similarly with toni morrison, audre lorde, mark fisher, and kurt vonnegut. inspired is the word. i read "slaughterhouse-five" and "capitalist realism" in under a few days time, whereas i spent more time on "zami" and "the bluest eye." it was less about comprehension and more about immersion, i find. some words are taken in like a savory broth before it becomes too cool, and others are the indelible garlic clove remnants on the tooth, first bite of spice making itself at home.
but yes, all this yapping and i could be reading. this is something i've been pondering over since it feels like i don't have too much time for hobbies these days. i've learned i've had to make time for such and keep going and going and going until i reach for a book and don't think much of how out of place it is in my routine. it's just something i will come to do. i also haven't been in a university for two years this coming summer. there's that for me to consider. i have as much time as i want to make (weird sentence structure but you know what i mean). with writing, though, it is more yapping and getting it out of me onto paper or here and less staring at the typing indicator thinking it will create syntax for me.
alternatively, well, maybe if i write it out enough times, it will become true. click-click.